Doggedness being an unusual trait in a black fellow, the homestead became
interested. "Never say die, little 'un," the Maluka laughed each
morning; but Dan was inclined to bet on Nellie.
"She's got nothing else to do, and can concentrate all her thoughts on
it," he said, "and besides, it means more for her."
It meant a good deal to me, too, for I particularly objected to Jimmy's
Nellie partly because she was an inveterate smoker and a profuse spitter
upon floors; partly because - well to be quite honest - because a good
application of carbolic soap would have done no harm; and partly because
she appeared to have a passion for exceedingly scanty garments, her
favourite costume being a skirt made from the upper half of a fifty-pound
calico flour bag. Her blouses had, apparently, been all mislaid. Nellie,
unconscious of my real objections, daily and doggedly put herself on the
staff, and was daily and doggedly dismissed. But as she generally
managed to do the very thing that most needed doing, before I could find
her to dismiss, Dan was offering ten to one on Nellie by Easter time.
"Another moon'll see her on the staff," he prophesied, as we prepared to
go out-bush for Easter.
The Easter moon had come in dry and cool, and at its full the Wet lifted,
as our traveller had foretold. Only a bushman's personal observation,
remember, this lifting of the Wet with the full of the Easter moon, not a
scientific statement; but by an insight peculiarly their own, bushmen
come at more facts than most men.
Sam did his best with Bunday, serving hot rolls with mysterious markings
on them for breakfast, and by midday he had the homestead to himself, the
Maluka and I being camped at Bitter Springs and every one else being
elsewhere. Our business was yard-inspection, with Goggle-Eye as general
factotum. We, of course, had ridden out, but Goggle-Eye had preferred to
walk. "Me all day knock up longa horse," he explained striding
comfortably along beside us.
Several exciting hours were spent with boxes of wax matches, burning the
rank grass back from the yard at the springs (at Goggle-Eye's suggestion
the missus had been pressed into the service); and then we rode through
the rank grass along the river, scattering matches as we went like sparks
from an engine. As soon as the rank grass seeds it must be burnt off,
before the soil loses its moisture, to ensure a second shorter spring,
and everywhere we went now clouds of dense smoke rose behind us.
That walk about with the Maluka and "Gadgerrie" lived like a red-letter
day in old Goggle-Eye's memory; for did he not himself strike a dozen
full boxes of matches?
